Has the “Journal of Controversial Ideas” Become Irrelevant?

The first issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas was published in April of 2021. For a brief moment, this seemed like a big deal. The journal was founded by well-known philosophers Peter Singer, Francesca Minerva, and Jeff McMahan. If anyone could meaningfully push back against academic conformity and cowardice, surely it would be these three.

At the time, it was common to see headlines about professors and researchers being chastised for asking the wrong questions. Perhaps most famously, in 2017, philosopher Rebecca Tuvel scandalized the academic world by publishing a defense of transracialism (the idea that a person can transition from one race to another) in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia. In response, according to Quillette:

“Over 800 people signed a petition demanding that her article be retracted. That never happened, but Tuvel was subject to online harassment, and attempts to get her fired. Hypatia’s board of associate editors responded by posting an apology on Facebook for the ‘harm’ that Tuvel’s article had supposedly caused. This wouldn’t be the last time something like that occurred.”

In an environment like that, it made sense for an academic journal to emerge that was dedicated to publishing controversial papers. Academics should feel free to take on any topic, no matter how many hyper-sensitive feathers it might ruffle. What is the point of academia if entire worlds of discussion are off limits?

Philosophers, in particular, are well-suited to bring dispassionate logic to hot-button cultural or moral discussions. Anytime it feels as though civil discourse has been lost online, it may very well be because both sides of an issue are arguing from an emotional rather than a logical standpoint. Or, for that matter, oftentimes people are simply arguing from a perspective of ignorance and incuriousness.